In my last post, I noted that, going in to your estate planning process, you need to answer three fundamental questions:

1. How many of the resources God has placed in your hands do you need in order to live your life as you believe you ought?
    
2. How many of the resources God has placed in your hands will benefit your heirs to help them live their lives as you would like them to be able to live?

   And, finally,

3. To what causes do you want to give what’s left over?

I said that, if you walk in without answers to those three questions, I can almost guarantee that your estate planning attorney will answer those questions for you . . . based on assumptions he or she will make in your behalf.

And what might those assumptions look like?

Here’s my experience. Most estate planning attorneys will assume you want to minimize taxes and, upon your death, pass everything you’ve saved over the course of your life–as much as possible–to your heirs: your children and grandchildren.

And beyond that?

“No assumptions.” –What else could you possibly want?

Well, let me raise some questions to see if even these assumptions are really what you want.

And in this post I hope simply to address the assumption of estate-transfer timing: the idea that your estate should pass to your heirs at your death. Read the rest of this entry »